WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE CLIMATE PROTECTION INITIATIVE

The Climate Protection Initiative (CPI) is a partnership between
WRI and private firms to identify acceptable policies and business strategies
for achieving strong climate protection goals. This institute-wide effort is
motivated by the belief that there is a positive link between climate protection
and a sound economy. Wider recognition of this linkage is essential for the
development and implementation of an effective international climate treaty.

WRI's CPI team is working with leading corporations to define
Safe Climate, Sound Business Scenarios - policy pathways for stabilizing
greenhouse gas concentrations and meeting world energy demand, while maintaining
a healthy economic environment. We are contributing to business strategies by
developing case studies of how companies have overcome barriers to implementing
carbon dioxide reduction initiatives and achieved financial and productivity
benefits. And, we are investigating how the development of advanced technologies
could position such industries as electronics and communications as leaders in
climate protection.

The build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and
human-caused warming of the Earth is the largest global environmental challenge
facing society as it approaches the 21st century. According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if action is not taken to slow and
reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, there could be ecological
impacts on a scale outside all of human experience. In turn, these impacts would
have serious economic and social consequences. Significant technological,
economic, and policy changes are needed now and in the coming decades to head
off these risks.

The actions needed to address the threat of climate change,
however, provide an opportunity to chart a more sustainable course into the
future as individual firms and national economies become more efficient, embrace
environmentally-sound technologies, and accelerate the transition to a global
economy fueled by renewable energy resources.

The CPI team is committed to designing and advancing policy
options that are flexible and market-based, allow least-cost mitigation
strategies, and are sensitive to competitiveness issues within and among
nations. Through this initiative, WRI seeks to reduce the risks of climate
change while nurturing sustainable economic development worldwide.